Navel maneuvers

I saw the first ep of series three of "Sherlock" last night.

I'm not going to review it in any specific detail in this post.

I am going to rant a bit. It may cross into something that might vaguely be considered spoilerish. Perhaps.

I watched the episode with eager anticipation. I love "Sherlock". Moffatt and Mark Gatis have done a fantastic job with the re-imagined show. The episode from season two with the Triads was weak, but the rest of the five episodes were entertaining, if not actually fantastic.

I enjoyed "The Empty Hearse" (the opener for series three) but there was just something that bugged me.

It took me about thirty minutes of watching until it really sank it. It's a lot of what has bugged me about Moffatt's tenure on "Dr. Who" as well as Russell T. Davies' tenure on "Dr. Who".

There's this weird mixture of excessive navel-gazing, patting one's self on the back, and vague homage coupled with masturbatory slash-fic-ing that Davies, Moffatt, and Gatiss have a tendency to do that's really starting to get to me.

Until the most recent ep of "Sherlock", I never got that vibe from Gatiss. He seemed to have his shit together and keep stuff in perspective. I've generally enjoyed Gatiss's offerings in "Dr. Who". They haven't knocked my socks off, but they've been solid enough, especially when compared with the shockingly-weak stuff Moffatt has produced.

Gatiss is credited for "The Empty Hearse" and I gotta say, the ep felt more like something Moffatt whacked-off onto a page.

All three of these men seem determined to take their childhood heroes and sexualize them rather than focus on writing the characters having adventures in the manner in which they're intended.

Example: RTD brings back "Dr. Who" in a modern, brilliant way. Then he gets super-involved in adding sexual chemistry signals followed by tons of snogging and odd affair-like scenarios between the Doctor and his various female companions, most of whom act embarrassingly-clingy and besotted.

Moffatt and Gatiss had fun with exploring homoerotic overtones with "Sherlock" and that was entertaining, but the story of Sherlock Holmes isn't about a sexual dynamic, homosexual or not. It's about solving mysteries. When the focus shifts from being a detective to slapstick and sexual innuendo as the dominant themes, you're no longer writing Sherlock Holmes. You're writing slashfic and there's a place for that: the Internet.

I really wish the new crop of brainiacs would dial down their masturbatory fantasies by a factor of a million and focus instead on just doing good stories.

Moffatt proved with "Blink" and other tales that he can pen fantastic stuff for "Dr. Who". Gatiss similarly has done solid work. Write slashfic on your own time, guys. Post it to a newsboard. Sell it as an ebook on Amazon. Folks will buy it up and feel overjoyed. Don't dilute the main programs in that fashion. It's childish.